Innovation Consulting

An organization can face many complex challenges. Some of those challenges are difficult by nature, but others are made more difficult by a lack of tools and know-how.

Through solution design and our Blue Sheep methodology, we offer the tools, skills, and knowledge you need to achieve innovative results. We quickly activate collaborative groups that can co-create solutions with your teams.

In a period of 3 to 6 months, we identify the challenges that afflict your organization. We then form interdisciplinary teams within your company, who will become advocates for innovation, and begin the process of co-designing actionable solutions. Eventually, your organization will be ready to take the next step towards a culture of innovation.

The world is changing ever more rapidly. And in this context, the old solutions no longer work. We have to look for alternatives.

Being profitable and scalable is not enough. We have to be agile, flexible, and smart.

When our clients need to transform to be more disruptive or survive in an unpredictable market, we work with them to develop alternative business models or radically alter their current models.

We go beyond the established limits. We develop unexpected scenarios to generate disruptive products and services that can bring us closer to a future that is closing in at an accelerating pace.

Industry paradigms are shifting all the time. Companies need to be agile to adapt to a constantly-changing world. When companies understand this, organizational innovation stops being a nice-to-have feature and becomes a need-to-have value.

However, not everyone has the experience to know how to approach the need for innovation. That is why, at Olivia, we work together with our clients to define a long-term solution. This can be the creation of an innovation office or an open innovation strategy planning, among other possibilities.

The goal, in all cases, is always to develop the skills, resources, structures, and methodologies necessary to anticipate and adapt to change, and develop an innovative DNA.

Our Breaking Borders events seek to generate awareness among your collaborators and transform how they think about innovation.

Using problem-solving methodologies such as design thinking, we make your teams feel comfortable operating under different rules. We lead them to question their previous beliefs, collaborate with professionals in other fields or areas, understand their industry’s greatest challenges, and give shape to solutions that will push the company towards innovation.

At the same time, Breaking Borders allows us to perceive what challenges your collaborators believe they’re dealing with, identify agents of change and hidden talents, democratize innovation, and evaluate ideas that may be utilized in future processes of innovation.

What Was The Challenge in Innovation?

Our client was already in the process of transforming their business. They hoped to instill an innovative spirit into every part of the company. In fact, the whole organization, from the top management to customer-facing employees, were to be involved in our projects.

The first challenge was to educate and encourage the leadership (branch managers, supervisors, treasurers, coordinators, team leaders) to participate in and hold inspirational talks, discussing innovation and other topics related to banking, customer experience, digital transformation, and business intelligence.

What Was Our Role As Innovation Consultants?

For three consecutive years, we worked on organizational innovation projects with this client. Each project, one per year, incorporated collaborators from the organization.

In all cases, we worked on ideas and challenges the bank would face in the coming years — or was already facing in the present. We encouraged work routines and styles that differed from what collaborators were used to, leading to innovative solutions to current and upcoming challenges.

We organized an event with 300 people from the organization and invited them to think about and embrace a new innovative mindset. This was a space for co-creation and awareness-building, in which we identified the innovation ambassadors who would form a network of innovators within the company. In this context, we learned about the challenges ahead for the organization.

The participation of collaborators was crucial, as was the enthusiasm and creativity they exuded during the event and in their presentations. All this made for a unique experience that laid the groundwork for the future of the organization.

We helped the client find solutions that it hadn’t considered before. We tore down organizational walls and identified talent that had previously remained hidden, as people were able to change roles within the company structure depending on their skills and interests.

What Concrete Actions Did We Carry Out To Achieve Organizational Innovation?

After this transformative event — and to kick off each of our three projects — we sat down and defined strategic innovation challenges with the top management. For each year, we selected six key challenges.

In turn, we also created six work squads, one per challenge. Each squad consisted of ten people, who came from all areas of the company and formed an interdisciplinary team. For the following six months, each squad underwent a process of innovation, using different methodologies to find innovative solutions to each of the strategic challenges.

This process of innovation involved the following stages: observation of and conversations with customers, benchmarking, co-creation, prototyping, validation, and finally a presentation for the top management, who then determined which initiatives and innovative solutions to prioritize and which to withhold for future innovation plans.

In each case — whether the solutions were focused on digital transformation, customer experience, or any other topic –, we made sure the process itself was worthwhile, as it expanded the reach and importance of innovation within the company.